Seventh charge

Lawyers and investigators in the “Kozlov case” formulated mutual claims

Last night, the Prosecutor General's Office formally charged Liana Askerova , the last, seventh defendant in the case of an attempt on the life of First Deputy Chairman of the Central Bank Andrei Kozlov . She is charged with accessory to murder. According to investigators, it was Liana Askerova who helped find the killers for the former head of VIP Bank Alexey Frenkel, who is considered the organizer of this crime.

Yesterday, the scandal related to the conflict between the lawyers of the accused and the investigation continued. At first, lawyer Igor Trunov, defending banker Frenkel, said that investigative authorities were conducting illegal interrogations of his client, using methods of psychological influence. Then, with reference to certain sources in the Prosecutor General's Office, information appeared that its representatives intended to debar Mr. Trunov himself. The reason cited was the lawyer's violation of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which resulted in the disclosure of investigative secrets. If this happens, Mr. Trunov will become the fourth lawyer removed from this case. The Prosecutor General's Office declined to comment on this situation yesterday.

As the Vremya Novostei newspaper has already reported, the conflict between lawyers and investigators in this case began almost immediately after the arrest of Frenkel and Askerova last week. Their lawyers, as well as the defenders of another alleged intermediary between the “customer” and the killers - Boris Shafrai, have since repeatedly stated that the head of the investigative team Valery Khomitsky creates various obstacles for them - either he does not allow them to get acquainted with the case materials, or every time he finds excuses to avoid meeting with clients. In the end, according to the lawyers, Mr. Khomitsky announced that the defendants were refusing their services altogether. “Khomitsky said that Askerova does not need me and another lawyer, Tatyana Luchkina. The investigator was unable to provide any documents in this regard, so we continue to work with her,” defense attorney Nikolai Klen told Vremya Novostey. Khomitsky told Boris Shafrai's three lawyers the same thing and promised to send a written refusal from the accused by the end of the week. “For us, this was a very unexpected decision by Boris. After all, we immediately found a common language with Mr. Shafrai and agreed to solve everything together or, in extreme cases, to do nothing without discussing it together. I don’t even know whose signature might be on that document, and if the refusal was signed by Shafray, then in what condition he was then,” said lawyer Valery Karyshev. A little later it turned out that Shafrai’s defenders would not see any written refusal either. “The investigation acted very cunningly. Instead of the promised document, investigator Khomitsky promised to prepare a response from the investigation with reference to Shafrai’s statement about his refusal from us. You know, I don’t want to say that this is lawlessness, but it’s not far from it,” said lawyer Maxim Slesarenko.

“I finally managed to meet with Mr. Frenkel, and he told me that unauthorized procedural actions are being carried out against him - they are interrogating him without a lawyer and a protocol, and illegal methods are being used. Today (Thursday - Ed .) he was interrogated in this way for an hour,” Igor Trunov said yesterday. According to the defense lawyer, constant violations forced him to write a complaint to the Prosecutor General's Office and challenge investigator Khomitsky.

A few hours after this statement, information appeared that the Prosecutor General’s Office intended to seek to debar Trunov from his lawyer status. According to a news agency source, the defense attorney allegedly violated the Code of Criminal Procedure by divulging the secrets of the investigation and telling the press during Frenkel’s arrest that all charges against the banker were based only on the testimony of Liana Askerova. “Your colleagues told me this news. I'm surprised. Firstly, this statement was made before they took a non-disclosure agreement from me. Secondly, I still have not seen the case materials. Thirdly, the statement that Askerova testified against Frenkel was first voiced by representatives of the prosecutor’s office, Mr. Trunov said. “On the other hand, the lawyer is flattered that his procedural opponent is complaining about him.”

According to the general opinion of lawyers, such behavior of the prosecutor's office, violating the principle of equality of parties, is due to the lack of indisputable evidence from the investigation of the guilt of the detainees. Earlier, lawyer Valery Karyshev already suggested that in this way the investigation wants to introduce into the process, instead of experienced defenders, those who will remain silent and will not object to the actions of the investigator and write complaints. “You see, in the current situation, when we are cut off from the client, we do not know what state he is in, what they are doing to him, what he is really saying. I don’t rule out that they convinced him that the lawyers had forgotten about him, that they were testifying against him. And there is no one to tell him how to behave.”

Alexey IVLEV